18-month-old Monmouth boy battling leukemia

On Dec. 16, the Armstrong family learned their youngest son had acute myeloid leukemia. He's undergoing treatment at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

By Andy Bell-BaltaciThe Review-Atlas

MONMOUTH — Ryan Armstrong works with the Monmouth Fire Department at the South Fire Station and his wife, Caylin, is a teacher at Monmouth-Roseville High School. The Armstrongs have two sons: Tyler, the elder, is 5 years old and Ryder, the junior, is 18 months old.

In November, Ryder started having ear infections and flu-like symptoms. The Armstrongs drove to Peoria and, after a short visit with the doctor, they were sent home. Shortly after, the symptoms went away and life went back to normal in Monmouth. It was like that for a month.

Then, in mid-December, Ryder’s health began to decline. His waking hours began to be filled with sleep. Ryder grew more irritable and, at night, Ryan recalled the baby waking up screaming. On Dec. 15, the Armstrongs decided it was time to go back to Peoria, and they were there first thing in the morning the following day.

That day, on Dec. 16, the Armstrongs learned their youngest son had acute myeloid leukemia. It was then that they decided to drive to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Back in Monmouth, Tyler was with his grandparents, and he knew his brother was sick — but just how sick, he didn’t know.

“By the time we got down to Memphis, [Ryder] was pretty close to passing away,” Ryan said.

The hours that followed were an intensive effort by the staff at St. Jude to keep Ryder alive. After taking Ryder in, they medicated him. His status continued to deteriorate, though, and soon enough he couldn’t breathe on his own. The medical staff put him on a ventilator, which is when his kidneys started shutting down.

“We went straight to the ICU and he had gone into renal failure at that time, too, so they had to perform dialysis for eight days around the clock until his kidneys started functioning again,” Ryan said.

Tyler wanted to see his brother. Since Ryder was born, the two had developed a strong bond. By this time, Christmas was rolling around, and while Ryan and Caylin talked with Tyler over video, he would ask to see his brother.

“We didn’t want him to see Ryder for the first time with all these tubes coming out of him,” Ryan said through tears. “So we would always give him the excuse that he was sleeping or taking a bath with the nurses or something like that, and by the end of the week, he started catching on.”

So the Armstrongs decided to let Tyler see his brother. They brought him to Memphis, and the Children’s Services department told Tyler the full extent of his brother’s illness.

“When we took [Tyler] in he was completely fine with it,” Ryan said. “He wasn’t scared.”

Since then, Ryder has undergone two phases of chemotherapy, each 10 days long and separated by a month. Ryder soon will begin his third phase of chemo, but the treatment has already taken its toll, causing blisters all over his body. Each week of chemo includes 13 doses.

With the Armstrongs having two children, the family has been divided in half, as Tyler has needed to stay in Monmouth. And because it would be too much of a disruption for Caylin to move back and forth as a teacher, she has become Ryder’s full-time guardian in Memphis. Meanwhile, Ryan has worked intermittently at the fire station, sandwiching stretches of two weeks there with periods of five days with Tyler visiting Ryder and Caylin in Memphis.

Despite the hardship, Ryan has been extremely satisfied with the way St. Jude has treated his son.

“St. Jude’s has been wonderful,” he said. “They’ve met every need that we’ve had. They’ve given support for my wife and myself and for Tyler when he’s down there and they do everything they can for Ryder.”

According to the St. Jude website, “the mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment.”

The website also highlights the cornerstone value of the hospital: “Consistent with the vision of our founder, Danny Thomas, no child is denied treatment based on race, religion or a family’s ability to pay.”

Ryan is grateful for the support his family has received from the Monmouth community.

“The support here has been very good,” he said. “Everyone is always asking what they can do.”

Still, he said, what keeps him up at night is the uncertainty of the disease and the way it has changed the family.

“I think Tyler is having to grow up a little faster than a kid should,” Ryan said. “He’s had his family ripped apart, like all of us have.”

Right now, the Armstrong family is awaiting the results of a genetic profile that will determine whether Ryder needs a bone marrow transplant.

If Ryder does not need the transplant, his family can take him home in six months, visiting St. Jude every three months for the chemo treatments he needs to survive. If he does need the transplant, however, he won’t leave the hospital for another two years.

Even if Ryder is able to beat the disease, Ryan says he will always fear that the cancer will come back.

“One of the first signs that the leukemia is coming back is kids with leukemia tend to bruise more easily,” Ryan said. “If he starts having cold symptoms or a bruise pops up, the first thing that’s gonna pop into the back of my mind is, ‘Is the leukemia back?’”

Ryan hopes that if everything goes well, Ryder will not remember this part of his young life.

“We hope we get through this on a relatively easy track and keep moving the way we’ve been moving since we got down there,” Ryan said. “He’s young enough that he’ll bounce back really fast and hopefully he doesn’t remember most of it, because it’s been tough.”

Because St. Jude does not charge the families of patients, the hospital relies on donations to help cover medical costs. To donate to St. Jude, click on the “Ways to Give” tab at www.stjude.org.

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